mysunwolf - four acres and some sheep

mysunwolf said:

I LOVE your pigs by the way! I thought about getting some just to have people mistake them for sheep! Piglets are so much fun, but are especially so when you have good piggy moms.

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Those would be some interesting sheep! I'm so excited to breed Patricia, the mangalista breed is very old, they were bred with wild boars. The people we got them from said they are spectacular mothers.

I read your post when you did it and I have no idea what happened... Normally I would have responded, and I guess I just got sidetracked. The beautiful pics of your ewes and scenery were at the top of the opening page, which brought me back here to your journal. Hope you're doing better after your 2nd treatment. Are you back mobile again? I've seen you back on the boards again, and it's good to have you back! Sorry you lost the lambs to worms. That had to hurt. Was your neighbor able to save the one you sent to her?

Have you started looking at a breeding schedule for your ladies yet? Or has it already happened? I'm also curious as to how the Friesian mixes did with milking? Or maybe that was for this coming year? So many questions... One final one... How is Cow doing? Still stargazing I hope?

Latestarter said:

I read your post when you did it and I have no idea what happened... Normally I would have responded, and I guess I just got sidetracked. The beautiful pics of your ewes and scenery were at the top of the opening page, which brought me back here to your journal. Hope you're doing better after your 2nd treatment. Are you back mobile again? I've seen you back on the boards again, and it's good to have you back! Sorry you lost the lambs to worms. That had to hurt. Was your neighbor able to save the one you sent to her?

Have you started looking at a breeding schedule for your ladies yet? Or has it already happened? I'm also curious as to how the Friesian mixes did with milking? Or maybe that was for this coming year? So many questions... One final one... How is Cow doing? Still stargazing I hope?

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Thank you, I so appreciate your post, even if I did get it a few months late. Just didn't get any notifications!

I am still having health troubles, I've reorganized the farm so things are a little easier. My neighbor was able to save the lamb I gave her, with MANY doses of wormer and drylotting for the rest of the summer. I can even still see her across the fence and visit her when I like I'm hoping their daughter gets a chance to milk her next spring.

My brain has been so scattered I've neglected my notes this year, but all of the girls were bred at some point to my 70% Friesian ram Stud. We actually sold Cow and the last of our hair sheep to an acquaintance who has so far been happy with them. I miss her quite a bit But her teats were truly too small for my project. I can only keep so many sheep on our small property, so I am keeping the ones that meet the requirements. Now if we can just get a handle on the foot rot--it's just mild enough to be not-quite-an-issue, but just bad enough to limit the sheep's immunity during the warm wet months (basically April to August here). And keep me in quite a bit of back pain, even though I broke down and bought a sheep chair from Premier.

I milked four 50-70% Friesians spring 2016 and they were incredible! Great teats, good udders, and a decent amount of production. Plus delicious milk for my cereal, coffee, cream sauces. Next year going to try some quick soft cheeses.

From the four ewes I milked this spring, I have two ewe lambs that are 20-35% and one that is 70% that I will milk in 2017. I also have two Dorset/Suffolk ewes that I will not be milking but will save the lambs from and incorporate them into the program (may even save a ram lamb from them to be the next stud, we will see). All the ewes have been bred to Stud Muffin, even his daughter, and should lamb in February/March. This year we'll be setting up a nice creep feeder area and will begin locking the lambs up overnight to milk moms in the morning. I'm so excited!

Mostly I've been lurking around BYH just reading posts and journals and seeing what everyone else is doing. I will try to update this journal a little more often!

So sorry you still have the health issues. I hope during the "rest period" over winter you'll be able to get it under control. Sorry you had to let Cow go, but you have to do what you have to do. Glad the worm infested lamb survived. Hope she works out well for the neighbor and the daughter. Nice that you have a promising spring to look forward to Looking forward to spring lamb pics

It's great to see an update from you! Sorry about the troubles you've been having. Sounds like many things are going well though, good to hear milking went well this past spring. Hope things go even better for you next year!

We are still trying to sell a good deal of our flock. It's part of the process to slowly, slowly downsize our farming operation into something more manageable for us. But in the meantime, a good portion of the girls will be having lambs! No one seems to want to buy pregnant ewes, especially in February. I'll try to keep this updated as things progress. I have 9 total ewes, with 8 assumed bred, to be lambing over the next two months. Photos to come...

That is pretty funny, seems a lot of people here are more than happy to buy pregnant ewes. Talk to @Mike CHS !! Are these people just looking for a pet or two and don't want to deal with lambing?

Bruce said:

That is pretty funny, seems a lot of people here are more than happy to buy pregnant ewes. Talk to @Mike CHS !! Are these people just looking for a pet or two and don't want to deal with lambing?

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I have never had a problem selling pregnant ewes before, but I have always sold hair sheep. Maybe the wool sheep are not as popular? All those interested so far have never had sheep, only chickens, goats, etc. and would like a few milk sheep for their homestead, so I think that is why they are nervous about lambing!

Well they won't be milking any sheep if they don't go through lambing!

Bruce said:

Well they won't be milking any sheep if they don't go through lambing!

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Yep, that's what I told them! I am more than happy to hold onto my sheep indefinitely, and I was already sad to be missing their lambings, so it works out pretty well for me.